Transfer Nintendo Switch Screenshots Wirelessly To iOS Photos

If you use a Nintendo Switch and have ever used the screenshot function to capture a cool moment that just happened in a game, you have no doubt run up against the monumental pain in the ass that it is to get that screenshot off the device. Sure, you can post to Twitter and Facebook🤢 natively with the Switch, but what if you don’t use either service and prefer something else, like, oh, I don’t know, Micro.blog. 😉

I finally have a pretty ok way to do it! I won’t say it’s fantastic, but it’s reliable and is a heck of a lot better than the alternative: Turn off your Switch, remove the Micro SD card, plug the SD card into the computer, transfer screenshot, put SD card back into the Switch, and finally turn the Switch on.🤬

Ok, so what am I doing now? Here is what I set up to get a screenshot from my Switch to Photos.app on my iPhone/iPad/Mac.

Remember, it’s not 100% perfect or ideal, but it is functional.

Create a trash Twitter account (if you don’t have an account), and log in to that account on your Switch.

Go to IFTTT and create a new recipe using the Twitter and iOS Photos ingredients.

Setup the rule to trigger:If New tweet by twitter_username with hashtag #NintendoSwitch, then Add photo to album.

note: I left he part with the hashtag since the Switch puts it in every post, and I wanted to make the process as quick as possible.

That’s it! Now when you“post” a screenshot to this twitter account, it triggers IFTTT to copy the photo to Photos.app.

Current issues with this setup

It only grabs photos and not the 30-second clip videos. If you try it with a video clip, it will come through as a photo of the first frame of the video.

You do have to have a twitter account since it’s one of the only two ways to share with the Nintendo Switch currently. If you already have an account, you are set. If you don’t, you would need to set up a trash account as I did.

The resolution is not great. Need to figure out a way to pull a higher resolution version of the screenshots from Twitter.

It’s not immediate, but SOMUCH better than the alternative I mentioned above!